Replica
by starmuffin
Summary: Prompt from kink meme. Slight AC/Dead Space cross-over.  When Abstergo activity stops for over a week, Desmond is sent out to find out what happened.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Prompt the Kink Meme. A a slight cross-over, AC/Dead Space. Not AU, I managed to come up with something that strays a little from cannon. Spoilers for AC: Brotherhood. I fixed some of the things that were bugging me, but I probably missed something so if you find anything, let me know!

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><p>"Desmond, what's wrong?"<p>

He could barely hear Shaun's voice over his own heavy breathing, and the sound of his heart pounding in his head. Desmond gagged once, then twice before falling to his knees vomiting and gasping for breath. But the smell was so intense and thick that he could not make himself inhale. He was dimly aware of Shaun yelling in his headset.

"Desmond! Answer me! What the bloody hell-"

"Shaun." His voice came out raspy and harsh, trying to work through the sudden dryness he felt. Desmond took a deep breath through his mouth and tried to hold himself together, as he fumbled through his backpack. Sitting back against the wall when he found his phone, and tried as best he could, despite his shaking hands, to turn it on. "Pick up your phone."

"What?"

"Just fucking do it Shaun!" Desmond yelled without thinking. He gasped and looked around in a panic, hoping he didn't attract another one of things. Staying still for a few seconds and ignoring Shaun yelling at him as he demanded an explination. "Oh god oh god, shit... shit! S-Shaun!"

"Desmond, calm down and explain what the fuck is going on! Did you get captured? Are you hurt? What happened to the rest of the team-"

"Dead, they're dead! All of them- there were so many Shaun, those things... fuck! What the fuck are they! What was Abstergo doing, Shaun? Tell me you know somethin-" he stopped his panicked ranting when he heard a clicking sound. Frantic eyes searched around the corner, trying to see something in the dark corner of the hallway he was in. Desmond swallowed through the dryness and sank down again, hands working on his cell phone in a frenzy trying to work the camera. "I-I'm sending you something on your phone. Tell me what the fuck this thing is!"

"Desmond, you brought your phone!" Desmond almost feel Shaun's angry stare on him, and gave a breathless chuckle at the image. To think he thought that stare was by far the scariest thing he had ever seen... he would rather deal with an angry Shaun right now... "We told you not to do that, Templars can track you down!"

"How would they, they're fucking dead Shaun! Everyone's dead! Now shut the fuck up and let me take a picture of this thing I killed, and you can show it to everyone else and tell me what it is!"

"...what? What do you mean they're dead? I thought you mean our team is dead."

"They are, but so is everyone in the building... fuck, this thing fucking smells." Desmond gagged but managed not to vomit this time, and continued taking pictures. He figured one would NOT be enough. Walking around whatever the thing he killed was, Desmond took a couple of pictures, the entire time expecting for it to suddenly get up again and start attacking. "Okay... I'm going to send you some pictures."

"Alright. Desmond are... are you alright?" he sounded worried, and Desmond couldn't help but smiled at that.

"Yeah, more or less. It slashed me on the black, kinda hurts but nothing too bad. I'm more worried about bullets for this gun I found, I kinda need it."

"Not going to use your blade? Did you lose it?"

"No. No... I don't think I can kill one of these things with the hidden blade, especially since I have to get close to it and that's a bad idea... okay. I'm sending it."

He waited for Shaun to get the pictures, his back pressed to the wall like it would suddenly open up from behind him, and get him out of the Abstergo building.

"Alright, I got it..."

"..."

"...what the... Desmond, what is this?"

"I was hoping you could tell me... there's more, different kinds. We saw some dead ones in the lobby, and some of the ones the team managed to kill before they..."

"Jesus... fuck, what is... what the fuck was Abstergo doing!"

"Fuck if I know. If William knew about this, and still send us out, and I'm going to fucking kill him. We just lost a lot of people Shau-" Desmond stopped talking at the sound of something dragging on the floor. Shoving his phone in his pocket, and pulling the gun he had found out, he pointed it at the corner of the hallway the sound was coming from. The sound of the inhuman growling was loud enough for Shaun to ask about it.

"What was that?"

"Shaun... don't send anyone else. I'll... I'll find a way out of the building, but you can't send anyone else here!" Desmond could see it peering at him from the corner of the hallway, before it hid itself away. "Shit...this thing is fucking playing with me. You motherfucking-"

"Fuck that! Desmond, we're getting you out of there, just... let me call William, he-"

Whatever Shaun said after that was lost when the thing suddenly screeched at Desmond, running towards him on full speed.

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><p>"-knows a bit of what happ-" Shaun suddenly stopped when he heard a high pitched growled, and the sound of Desmond screaming, followed by gun shots, and something hitting the ground. "Desmond!"<p>

"Aaaugh! Oh god... shit! Get up Desmond, come on..." the sound of shoes clicking on the floor informed Shaun that Desmond was running from whatever it was that was attacking him. "Fuck, it's chasing me!"

"Fuck!" Shaun searched through his contacts in his cell phone despite being told to never contact anyone with it. He would have to hang up on Desmond otherwise. "Come on you fucking piece of...Desmond, hide yourself and wait for us to come get you-"

Desmond screamed, and Shaun felt his stomach drop at the sound. That wasn't a scared scream.

That was a pained scream.

It was followed by a groan and a whimper, before the sound of clicking shoes came back, but this time it faded off. Shaun paled. Desmond didn't have his headset anymore.

"DESMOND!"

The last thing he heard through the headset was a high pitched growl and the sound of heavy steps running across the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Sorry it took a while to update, I had two exams on the SAME DAY. And it's not even finals week yet!

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><p>Waiting for William to respond was the hardest thing Shaun had ever done. Everything in him was screaming to just fuck the others, and go to Abstergo Industries. Even with those things crawling around and not even sure if Desmond was alive... Shaun squeezed his eyes closed.<p>

Desmond was alive, he had to be. The man was an idiot half the time, but he was good at what he did, not to mention having two lifetimes worth of skill cramped into him, there was no way he was dead.

It took at least 20 minutes before he finally got an answer. It wasn't one he liked.

"What do you mean we have to wait for someone higher up to approve! We just lost a bunch of people and are about to lose anothe-"

"Hastings, we can't just send out more people and have them get killed by... whatever that was. And what's more, whatever you sent me..."

"What, you think I bloody photoshopped it or something! You fucking bastard, you sent out this team to their death, and you're just going to sit there and wait?"

"..."

Shaun grunted in frustration, spinning before getting off his chair. Gripping his phone in a death grip, he tried to get himself together. He knew William did not want to leave Desmond behind. The reason why wasn't something Shaun liked, that being that Desmond was needed for future Animus use, but the reason was big enough that the higher ups would give in.

Taking a deep breath, he continued trying to convince William to fuck approval. "William... I don't like you, and you don't like me, but please just..."

"Hastings... we don't have many people I can send out. I have about five assassins I can send out-"

"Is that counting me and Becca?"

"...I need you two-"

"Fuck that!"

Shaun jumped at that and turned around to find Becca standing there, looking fired up and pissed as hell.

"I have no idea what's going on but if something happened to Desmond, there's no way we're leaving him behind. We already lost Lucy..." She paused for a moment, and Shaun felt his chest ache at the thought. "We are not going to let Desmond die too."

The fact that William was not responding was proof that he had heard Becca yelling. Shaun had never been so glad for Becca being such a loud mouth in his life.

"There you go." Shaun continued before William said anything else. "Seven people, maybe eight if you come along. All we have to do is plan this out better. Bring guns this time, have a way out of the bloody building-"

"I know... can you get to Abstergo Industries on your own?"

"We'll be there!" Becca shouted as she took off to gather supplies. "Better hurry up, old man, we're going in there with or without you!"

"We'll be there." Shaun hung up before William changed his mind. Becca was right though, they would go in that building with or without their help.

–

William and the other assassins got there before Shaun and Becca, and were setting up in the parking lot. There were less than five assassins, but Shaun had expected that. William had always been a shady bastard, always thought of people as expendable and never wanted to bend to other people's opinions. But that didn't matter now, what mattered was that at least he HAD brought others and he did bring guns and supplies, and was planning out alternative ways out of the building. Shaun was confident that things be okay.

Before going in the building, William made Shaun explain what had happened, like he had actually been there... Shaun had lost reception for 30 minutes. The last thing he heard was a female assassin teasing/flirting with Desmond, who was embarrassed by this, and the others were laughing at the two. Shaun was teasing Desmond about it as well, which was probably why the other man had become so nervous, and before Shaun got the chance to tell Desmond that he should go for it, the connection went out. It came back with Desmond panting and swearing in a panic and... well, Shaun never got the chance to ask Desmond if he knew what happened.

"So he sent out the pictures, and was attacked by one of those things. He took off running but lost his headset on the way. He didn't say anything about those things, and I'm certain that he did not know anything anyway. He was demanding answers."

"Any questions for Hastings?"

The others looked at each other before gathering around the laptop again, wainting to see what they were going up against.

"What the fuck is that thing?"

"Shit... fuck...fuck."

"Heheh, is that what all Templars look like now? It's hot."

"It looks like your girlfriend, Tim."

"Hey fuck you!"

"Enough!" William snapped. All of them stopped talking and looked at the man, suddenly all professional like. Becca was still looking at the pictures, head turning again and again, trying to understand what she was seeing, before finally giving up.

"Okay, well, whatever it is, we're going to have to kick its ass-"

"There's more than one Becca."

"-and get Desmond out of there. And then we blow up the building!"

"..."

"Or not?"

While William looked unhappy at the lack or order, the others looked more relaxed at Becca's outburst, and Shaun couldn't blame them. He had been near a panic attack earlier, but now he felt more like they could do this.

And they would.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm so sorry for taking so long! I had final exams (good-bye community college!), a small vacation and boyfriend stuff to deal with. Nothing bad but so time consuming! Also, I'm not going to continue posting this over at the kink meme since they reached the comment limit so...

I don't usually beg for reviews but feedback would be nice, lets me know if I should bother to make time, and finish this.

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><p>Whatever that thing was, it was fast but it was stupid. Well, at least stupid enough not to know how to open a door. It scratched at it for a moment before it gave a high pitch whine and left, either giving up or trying to find an alternative way to get in. Desmond chose to believe it left, and leaned back on the door, ignoring the sting of the cuts on his back. The creature rammed into his side hard enough to break a rib or two, and he still had the lashes on his back from the other creature from before. They weren't bleeding as much but they hurt, and running around with wounds like that and letting them get infected, what if those things were contagious or something?<p>

"Heheh...like zombies." Desmond slid down to the floor laughing and curling into himself, his laughter turning hysterical. "Oh man, I'm gonna go crazy."

Desmond took a deep breath and sat up, trying to keep his breathing slow and calm. Freaking out was not going to help him. He just needed to keep himself together and try to find something to defend himself with. The small hand gun he had found was not going to be enough, he had used most of the bullets on that creature, and the thing didn't even slow down. Shooting them in the head didn't do anything, one of them kept attacking them without its head for fucks sake... and he almost emptied the gun on this last one, and the thing barely slowed down! And how did he kill the other one anyway? Desmond had been so panicked and scared, he just acted, he honestly had no idea what he did.

Regardless, sitting on the ground was not going to help him. Standing up and taking a deep breath, Desmond looked around the room he locked himself in. It was a security room, there were screens behind the desk which was covered in blood and bullets. He walked around the desk with caution.

There was a dead body behind the desk. And right next to it, there was a shotgun.

Desmond dived to it and grabbed it, checking how many shells it had if any, and chuckled when he saw that it was full, and even better, there was a box on the desk with more shells.

Okay so he was chased down by a raptor looking monster, and trapped in a room but at least he found a gun. Things were looking up.

Looking down at the dead body behind the desk, he noticed the security guard was still holding a handgun (another gun!), and had some security cards on him. That would make it easier to navigate through the building, despite everyone being dead, the security system was still working and there were many doors he could not go through.

"Poor bastard... you had a shotgun, man... why didn't you use that? Blow its fucking legs off-...huh." he paused at that statement. "That's not a bad idea! Okay, cool, now I need to get out of here."

Desmond turned to look at the TV screens, trying to see if there was anything around. Most of the screens showed dead bodies, the one showing the outside of this room was empty at first, but then that raptor thing showed up again, looking at the room and bouncing to it, taping it with its head. Desmond jumped at the knocking on the door, and gripped the shotgun even if he knew it couldn't get in. A full minute passed before it gave up with a growl and ran off. Desmond relaxed.

"Fucking...shit!" Desmond couldn't help but be angry at himself. He had a weapon that could actually do some damage to these things, but he couldn't make himself go out. Remembering what happened to the rest of the team... Hallie had tripped down the stairs and one of them had jumped on her, and the image of it lifting her up and ripping her arms off as she screamed and screamed and they just fucking stood there, too scared to do anything-

"Stop it." Desmond opened his eyes and tried to focused. Thinking about Hallie and the rest of the team was not something he should be doing now, not if he wanted to live. Later, if he wanted to feel guilty and have the nervous attack that he could feel building up, later he could do all that. Now he had to find a way out of here, maybe even try to find out what happened, destroy all of it. "We ran downstairs after we killed it, about four floors down. And we were in floor... twenty two, so I'm around floor eighteen or seventeen. If I can find a map, I could see if only one of those floors have a security room... I should probably try to contact Shaun, he had a map of the building...oh." His hand flew to his ear, remembering that he dropped the headset while being chased and screaming-

"Oh... Jesus, Shaun is probably freaking out... Shaun you total asshole, please for once in your life, listen to me and don't show up. Christ..." he hit one of the walls and screamed in frustration. Of course he was coming, probably contacted William and since the man still wanted Desmond to use the Animus, there was no way he would leave him behind. They had to be on their way, if not here already here (how much time had passed since he lost contact with Shaun?).

Well, freaking out was not going to help, and neither was staying in this room, but that meant going outside, and in all honesty, he wanted to avoid having to fighting any more of those things. There had to be something here... a secret door? A vent?

"For Christ's sake Desmond, this isn't a video game."

It took him about half an hour to gather enough courage and leave the security room, and it all seemed for nothing since the raptor thing was gone. Not that he was complaining but still, he had worried for nothing. Desmond walked with caution, eyes darting from side to side, hands gripping the shotgun in a death grip, his heart pounding hard. He had never been so afraid in his life, and he couldn't stop thinking about the team dying...Hallie being ripped apart, Sam being dragged away by one and not being able to see what was happening to him but the scream he gave...yes, Desmond was terrified, how his hands weren't shaking, he didn't know.

Turning a corner, the only warning he had was a high beeping sound before the entire hallway went dark. He wasn't able to stop the surprised/scared yell from breaking out but got a grip on himself fast, and smacked his back against the wall, shotgun ready. Suddenly a whirling sound started up, and the room lit again.

"Oh fucking... thank you, thank you whoever decided to have a back up generator. Thank you for being paranoid bastards..."

Getting back to where he had come from proved to be surprisingly easy. He remembered some of the rooms and the reception hall, so it was quite simple to get back. Well, that and he drips of his blood around the floor. All he needed now was to find the elevator. The problem was that you needed security cards to go to certain floors, and while the first floor had no cards to go with it and he should be able to just leave, Desmond felt like he should try to find out what happened here, despite the fact that he was scared shitless. And that was another problem... where would he go? He needed a list of all the floors and what was in them, but where to find that he had no idea. The security room had nothing he could use, his hacking skills were not up to this level, that had been Hallie's job, and whatever he had to do, Shaun was guiding him through it, and of course that was out of the question. He had lost his headset, his only way to contact...

Desmond gasped.

"I'm an idiot... my phone!" Desmond ran towards a corner in the dark and pulled his phone out of his pocket. "I got reception back there so that means..." He looked at the corner of the screen and saw that the bar was full. "Yes! Shaun you better pick up or I'll kill you when I get out of here."

The moment the team made a move to break through the main front doors, Shaun had been expecting for the entire building to light up or an alarm going off, or hell, entire team of Templars popping out of the windows dressed like ninjas. Instead nothing happened.

Nothing.

"Did you cut off the power?" he asked the tall blonde man who had disappeared when they first arrived.

"There's a backup generator in the building, we figured it would be fine." He flashed Shaun a smile. "But just between you and me, I wasn't too sure that would work. I was thinking the backup generator would fix the security system too, but guess it didn't." The man laughed and walked faster to catch up with his team. Shaun rolled his eyes. And here he thought William had gathered a serious team. At least the good side of this, was that everyone could give the bastard a headache.

The front lobby was lit up and empty, and it was a bit scary to be just standing in the middle of the room with no noise and no people in it, but if anyone was scared, they didn't show it. The other assassins checked the room out, one went to a computer behind the front desk, Becca started to set up some of her equipment on a bench, William helping her set up. Shaun stood in the middle of the room feeling a little useless. He was usually the guy on the other side of the headset, helping the assassins complete their missions, sure he had gone on some, and even killed, but it wasn't his strong suit. But here he was, in a building filled with monsters or something and he really had no idea what he could do. If an entire team could be killed by those things, Shaun was not sure what he would be able to do, what any of them could do.

"Hey, Shaun?"

"Hm?" he looked at Becca who was still setting up.

"Did Desmond... was he okay?"

"Yeah... more or less. He was scared and hurt but not dead. I guess that's good enough."

Becca stopped what she was doing and looked at the others who were huddled around William now, probably planning what they were going to do.

"Hm, guess we're the outsiders on this team. He's making me stay here and try to hack the security system... the alarms don't work, but certain floors need a card or something and since we don't have them... what are you doing? You staying here too or are you gonna go with them?"

"I...I want to go with them. I don't know if I can do much but...I don't know if William will let me go with though." Shaun sighed and looked at the man who seemed to be explaining something to the others. "He's all about order... you know how he is."

"Yeah, he's all about that. Lucy always complained about him...Shaun?"

"What?"

"If you do go with them..." she paused as she stood up, and gave him a pleading look. "We already lost Lucy, and I... I don't want to lose another friend. Not Desmond, after all he's been through. So, you know, I mean..." Becca frowned, and Shaun was surprised to find her getting flustered. "I can't make you promise me that the both of you will make it back alive, but... can you promise me anyway?"

Shaun closed his eyes and remembered the four of them hanging out on the days Desmond didn't use the Animus, and how much fun the four could have despite everything. And now that they lost one and were on the verge of losing another one...

"I promise that both Desmond and I will come back."

Becca smiled at him before smirking and hitting him on the shoulder, and went back to setting up.

"When you do, we'll party. You need more fun in your life anyway."

Shaun rolled his eyes as William started to walk towards them.

William decided to let Shaun go along for some reason, what it was he wasn't sure but was not about to complain. The other person coming with them was a woman that he didn't catch her name, but in all honesty, he did not care. The only thing that mattered to Shaun at this moment was getting Desmond, and himself out of the Abstergo building, no matter what.


End file.
